


Statuette

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, legendarium ladies april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aredhel gets hurt and left behind by Celegorm, so she spends an afternoon with her kind aunt Nerdanel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Statuette

“What?” Irissë was yelling out of the wide open glazed doors from where she sat on the flagstones half in half out of the house. “You’re just going to leave me here you Valar-damned -  _Tyelko!_ ” she winced as an intense stab of pain went through her leg, hoping it wasn’t broken but fearing it was. “Tyelko! You can’t just…”

“Yes… sorry about, ah… not being able to walk, and everything. Nelyo promised he’ll stop by and take you home to Tirion in the pony cart later!” came a vague voice from the stables. 

“No he didn’t, Nelyo’s not even here! You just made that up!”

“Sorry, Irissë, missed that… got to go. It’s the dance of the summer wolves tonight, and Oromë and Vána are expecting me! I’d take you along, but seeing as you can’t walk and all…”

She let out a snarl of rage. “ _You_  won’t be able to walk, when I get my hands on you. And why did I fall out of the tree in the first place, hmm?”

“I’ll be damned if I know. Very careless of you…”

“It was your precious red feather, that that bird had flown up there with! I was trying to reach the nest and get it back, you… Tyelko,  _come back!_ ”

Irissë shook her fist at him as his retreating back appeared around the side of the house, dressed only strips of leather and body paint. “Oh, no, come back here, you louse-crawling, deer-fucking, cock-faced reprobate… I’ll put an arrow in your ass! I’ll… I’ll…”

“Irissë?”

She started, and looked around behind her, her face flushing red as she saw that it was Nerdanel. “Oh! I’m sorry aunt, I was just…” she tailed off, mumbling. “I wasn’t really going to shoot your son, I promise.”

Nerdanel smiled, sympathetic but stern. “Honestly, what  _has_  he gotten up to this time?”

“He left me here” said Irissë, crossing her arms across her knees furiously, before wincing as she touched her knee. “Ah! I… I hurt my leg, and he just carried me back from the woods and… just  _left_  me here! And Finno was supposed to be somewhere, but he and Nelyo are off in the woods as usual, doing - ahem, ah, doing… _something_ … but I don’t know where they are, and I was supposed to ride with him and the hunt tonight, but I can’t.” She glared blackly as her leg, then dropped her face into her hands. “It hurts” she muttered, through gritted teeth, trying to keep her tears back. 

But Nerdanel was already there beside her, sitting down on the warm paving stones at her side, putting a strong arm around Irissë’s shoulder. “When Tyelko gets back” she said, her face filled with anger, “That boy is going to be grounded for this. For  _months_. Leaving a friend who’s hurt behind? I should have taught him better, and I’m very sorry.” She smiled apologetically, brushing Irissë’s hair back from her face, wiping away her tears with a callused thumb. “Now where does it hurt?”

Irissë sniffed, starting to tremble. “Everywhere? My whole leg hurts. I don’t think I can walk.”

Nerdanel sighed. “Only one thing for it then. Don’t worry, with seven sons and all the ridiculous situations they somehow managed to get themselves into, I am, at least, a skilled healer.” And with that she lifted Irissë like a child, cradling her gently in strong arms, and bearing her inside to her studio. 

“Sweet one, will you let me see where it hurts?” said Nerdanel, after clearing a space and setting her niece down on the top of her workbench, amongst the stone chips and rolls of drafting paper. 

Irissë nodded, biting down hard on her lip to keep from crying, for the pain was throbbing through her leg in earnest now. “Here” she said, pointing. “And here, and… ah…”

Nerdanel had pressed down softly on her knee, peeling back her soft leather breeches. “I’m sorry” she said. “But…” 

Irissë’s shriek told her all she needed to know even without the quiet grating of bone she felt beneath the bruised skin. “Ah, I am so sorry for that, my dear” said Nerdanel. “I will need to bandage it, and then we can take you to a healer in Tirion. Or, I could set it myself, which might be easier.” She grimaced. “There have certainly been enough broken bones in this family. Why, did I ever tell you about the time that Maitimo tripped over his own bootlaces and down into the well, the poor gangly, clumsy young thing that he was…”

“No!” said Irissë, shocked and momentarily distracted. She could not imagine fair and graceful Maitimo  _ever_ being gangly, tall as he was. She grinned. “What else?”

“Well, there was that time that Macalaurë fell out of the window of his lady’s house in Tirion…” 

“Now you’re telling me lies, aunt” said Irissë, giggling. 

“No, I’m not! And then, of course, the… memorable occasion when little Moryo was still trying his skills in the forge, and accidentally took a hammer to my husband’s fingers…” she grimaced in pain at the memory, before sighing. “Fëanáro paced like a caged animal until he could get back to his work, poor dear. I remember thinking it would have driven me half to distraction if it had been me, so I certainly sympathise with your frustration at not being able to go out into the woods, wild wisp of the woods that you are.” She gave Irissë’s nose a gentle tweak, just enough to make her laugh, through the pain. “Come. Wait a moment while I get my bandages and plaster, and I will be right back.”

“Well” said Irissë with a rueful smile, “I’m not exactly going anywhere, am I?”

It was some time later when Irissë sat in the corner of the studio on a pile of cushions, a mug of willow-bark tea in her hands and her newly plastered leg propped up on an upturned crate, also well padded with cushions. The pain had receded a little, and for that she was grateful.

Nerdanel was at her work bench, busily carving something too small for Irissë to see, yet still Irissë craned to try to get a look. “What’s that?”

Nerdanel gave her an enigmatic smile. “Drink your tea, darling. You’ll see soon enough.”

After a while, Nerdanel turned around, placing something small into Irissë’s hands with a flourish. “See? I call it, “the artist’s brave niece facing a broken leg with steadfast courage” but that is more of a provisional title than anything.”

Irissë stared at the object in her hands. It was a tiny figurine, carved out of soft soapstone, more swiftly and roughly than Nerdanel’s other work she thought. And yet it seemed almost alive, in the way that did not require realism; it resembled herself - complete with leg propped up on a little stone pile of cushions and a grimace of forbearance on her tiny stone face - in a way that she had noticed when looking at the strange shapes Nerdanel crafted out of stone, the ones that resembled nothing, truly, and yet still seemed to evoke exactly the concept they were intended to. 

“Thank you, aunt” said Irissë, sincerely. “I… it’s wonderful, I love it.”

Nerdanel laughed. “Consider it a souvenir perhaps, and an apology for my son’s truly terrible behaviour.” She glanced at the colour of the sky outside, and Irissë noticed that it was past the mingling now, though she had not realised it was so late. “Hmm, but seeing as it really does seem that Nelyo will not be back until who knows when, I think it’s high time I took you home to your own mother, don’t you?”


End file.
